Welcome to my cross stitch site. I have
free cross stitch patterns of hummingbirds and other birds, as well as
a bluebird alphabet, ladybug alphabet, butterfly patterns, and southwest
designs. I hope you enjoy my patterns! In addition to cross-stitch,
I also have many other web pages including my Kid's Time Travel Adventure Story Geode Space

When I started my first garden, I am
sad to say that I bought pesticides when I saw bugs on my plants, but after
reading a book about organic gardening, I now understand more about maintaining
nature's balance. I love putting up nestboxes and watching the birds
come collect grasshoppers to feed to their babies. I feel good knowing
the birds are getting a pesticide-free meal and that I am no longer contaminating
their water supplies by using pesticides that would have been carried by
storm runoff to the lake near my house. 40% of U.S. streams and lakes
cannot even support fishing and swimming (Source: EPA web
site), yet birds and wildlife must eat, drink, and swim in these
streams and lakes daily. Now I plant only native plants to my region,
which stay healthier and do not require water or chemicals. I buy
organic foods at the grocery store to save wildlife killed by pesticides
used in farming.

Last year, prompted by concern about the spread of
West Nile virus, New York State asked counties to report dead birds to
its wildlife pathology laboratory. After receiving more than 80,000
birds, Dr. Ward Stone discovered that although the virus was a factor in
some of the deaths, the leading cause was pesticide poisoning. Common
lawn care chemicals were among the most common toxins (excerpt from National
Audubon Society). Some pesticides are much more toxic to birds
than to other speciesódiazinon is 100 times more acutely toxic to birds
than mammals, for example. Granular forms of lawn pesticides are
most dangerous to birds, and ingestion of even one granule (which they
mistake for food) can kill a small bird. Most often the bird retreats
to a sheltered area to die or is weakened enough to be eaten by predators
which then also suffer from the pesticides in the small bird's body.

The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the
present road, and it can do so only when in full possession of the facts.
-
Rachel Carson